"Unafraid" by Sam Aureli

Trill: Poems that Resonate from Iron Oak Editions and West Trade Review

Image by ArtHouse Studio from Pexels

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It’s disingenuous to say I’m afraid of change, because change is constant— I’m not afraid of the leaves’ shift from green to red, and I’m not afraid when they fall to the ground to die. The ruckus is the scariest part. It’s the noise that comes along with change that’s truly frightening: the growing pains; the heavy lifting of boxes as you move to a new city; the stitches dissolving as you heal; the beauty and terror of the universe being created.

From that sound, color, and fury of change rises Sam Aureli’s “Unafraid.” In it, the poet reminds us that chaos is not only ruin but creation. He reminds us that the most beautiful parts of the human experience— our love, our language, our curiosity — do not wait for peacetime to develop. Beauty grows both in light and in darkness.

-Samantha Long, Special Projects Editor

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Unafraid

When everything is on fire— 
your heart, 
the headlines,
 the fragile thread of your sleep— 
and the world turns 
to smoke and cinder, 
remember:

this is how life began,
 not in stillness, 
but in collision,
in molten silence
 beneath a forming sky.

I know. You’re afraid. 
The weight is immense. 
But look: 
fireweed rises from ash, 
its magenta bloom defiant
 in the soot-soft morning.

It did not wait
for gentleness. 
It simply grew, 
unafraid, 
even in the dark. 

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Sam Aureli, originally from Italy and now based in Boston, is a design and construction professional working in real estate development. When he’s not immersed in concrete and steel, he writes poetry rooted in the elemental textures of the world—cedarwood, tides, ochre leaves. He came to poetry later in life as a refuge from the noise, a way to pause and listen more closely to what the world quietly offers: the wisdom in birdsong, the lessons folded into seasons, the stillness between moments. Sam's poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in The Atlanta Review, Coverstory Books, Rough Diamond Poetry, Prosetrics the Magazine, Stanchion Magazine, Everscribe Magazine, Sontag Mag, Underscore Magazine, Humana Obscura, Crow & Cross Keys, among other journals. Sam was also the Grand Prize Winner in The October Project’s 2025 Poetry Contest, as well as a finalist in the Good Life Poetry HoneyBee Prize.